Thursday, July 07, 2016

My third and fourth Amazon reviews

The reviews on Amazon are coming in for "Trump the Press: Don Surber's take on how the pundits blew the 2016 Republican race."

The third review is by William P. Woodall. The fourth is by Laurence F. Sheldon Jr., a longtime supporter of the blog.Woodall's review:

A new political classic!

This delightful book contains hundreds of quotes from the pundits, opinion 'leaders' and political 'experts' who all failed to comprehend the rise of Trump. "What fools these mortals be" was the Bard's line, but it also applies here.

But it's not just quotes; Surber's acerbic wit and analysis are also present, as in this passage:

"Only someone as entrenched in the federal government (as Witcover became after decades of covering Washington) would dismiss Trump's forty years as a chief executive officer as making him "conspicuously unqualified" to be president, especially while a community organizer with less than a term in the Senate sat at the Resolute desk in the Oval Office."

This volume should be required reading for all those studying political 'science' or journalism. Great fun!

Thank you, Mister Woodall. You get exactly what I wanted to accomplish.

And now Sheldon's review:

The Whole Story.

Dense,

Interesting word.

On the one hand it describes well the targets, here, the "press". So dense that no amount of "obvious" can penetrate.

On the other hand, it describes the book itself, where every word on every page conveys the story to the reader.

Another reviewer describes it as "a new political classic" -- I think it may be a new genre -- one that not only explains what happened, but also provides the whole back drop so the reader can see WHY it happened.

The whole book is important and should be read in-sequence, but be prepared for some chapters to hit harder than others, I think there were a half dozen like that--particularly 34, and 44.

These special chapters triggered Aha! moments for me, where with great clarity I saw for the first time things I should have seen before.